Facebook group holds third protest in as many months

People lined the sidewalk on East River Road near the Pictou County Health Authority on Sunday afternoon as part of a protest by the Clean up the Pictou County Pulp Mill group. Throughout the protest they could be heard shouting, “What do we want? – Clean air. When do we want it? – Now.”

“It’s a good turnout, but the thing today is there’s different faces then there was last time, which is real good because not everybody can make it all the time,” said Dave Cullen, a member of the Facebook group that has organized the protests.

With that just under a year away Northern Pulp stated just over a week ago that they will continue to work on short-term solutions in the interim. During their maintenance shutdown in mid-September they will install a new set of 1,200 Modo scrubber spray nozzles, which will aid in removing particulate matter.

Currently the mill is not within the provincial regulatory threshold for particular matter (375 milligrams). They have seen an improvement in recent years, dropping from 670 milligrams in fall 2013 to around 500 milligrams during July tests by a third-party.

“The mill has said that it’s not going to be addressed change – they may put some scrubbers on and whatnot, but they need the precipitator and that’s supposedly what’s going to reduce all the particulate matter,” said Cullen. “We want to force them to do it. Over the years people have just forgot about it and allowed this mill to get where it is today. We don’t want people to forget about it and want to make sure our government enforces the law and holds all corporations to the same standards that they’d hold us.”

People lined the sidewalk on East River Road near the Pictou County Health Authority on Sunday afternoon as part of a protest by the Clean up the Pictou County Pulp Mill group. Throughout the protest they could be heard shouting, “What do we want? – Clean air. When do we want it? – Now.”